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As a self-described pedophile, he downloaded hundreds of thousands of images of pre-pubescent girls in sexually provocative poses until he was caught.

The size of his collection confounded even police and attorneys who successfully charged and prosecuted him twice on child pornography charges in 2009 and 2012.

Today, sitting in the backyard of his home, not far from the courthouse where he became forever infamous as one of Canada’s most notorious collectors of child pornography, he is both repentant and cautionary.

“I got sloppy and I deserved everything that happened to me,” said Johnson in an exclusive first-ever interview with the Star.

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“It was a form of addiction. I don’t use it as an excuse. I use it as an explanation. No one is more zealous than a reformed sinner.”

Robert Johnson was convicted on child pornography charges in 2009 and 2012 in London, Ont. Johnson told the Star his "duty is to put a warning out there that if you’re going to do this, you’re going to get caught and you’re going to lose everything — reputation, job, finances, circle of acquaintances, everyone is going to abandon you. It’s going to blow up in your face for the rest of your life.”
(Randy Risling / Toronto Star)

After serving two and a half years in jail for his most recent conviction, Johnson says he is telling his story in an effort to bring public attention to what he calls the largely hidden trade of child pornography online.

“It hooks you. It’s the forbidden fruit,” says the 64-year-old divorced man whose high-profile convictions have left him estranged from his ex-wife, daughter and virtually all of his family and friends.

“You can’t rationally explain it. I knew it was wrong. But something about it is just so insidious, it gets into your head, it gets into your eyes.”

Robert Johnson weeds the garden in his London, Ont., back yard. After serving two and a half years in jail for his most recent conviction, Johnson says he is telling his story in an effort to bring public attention to what he calls the largely hidden trade of child pornography online. (Randy Risling)

In 2012, police found more than 220,000 illicit images of young girls on Johnson’s computer. The girls ranged in age from about seven years old to their early teens, he says.

At the time, he didn’t see himself as an abuser. He rationalized that he was a mere observer of images created by others.

“I fully realize that those were live, real human beings. Kids. Roped into this. Tricked into it. Whatever the mechanism, I realized these are real people being exploited in one of the most heinous, insidious ways possible. To realize I engaged in that, it just disgusts me.”

The price he paid reaches well beyond the convictions, jail time and public humiliation, he says.

“The damage that I’ve done to myself, it just goes on and on and on,” says Johnson.

“My daughter has disowned me and I don’t blame her because the sense of betrayal is unimaginable.”

He hasn’t reached out since being released from prison last year. It’s too soon, he says.

“I’m honest with myself to realize that I bloody well deserved all the damage that came on my head because think of all the damage I contributed to those kids.”

Johnson’s path from married father with two university degrees and a middle-class income to a notorious child pornography collector seems surreal even to him.

Despite suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder and Asperger’s, he led a life that appeared to outsiders as productive and normal.

He married at 22. His daughter was born the following year. He was the breadwinner, working in IT positions at Western University and Brock University.

He and his wife separated in 2000, and five years later he started living a secret life logging on to child pornographic websites.

“I still had a healthy sex drive and I turned to the ubiquitous Internet porn for an outlet. That was the first time I saw child pornography. It popped up on one of the adult porn sites.”

Fast forward a year and he says he was seeking it out, collecting it in massive downloads, often well into the night.

“It is so pernicious, so vile,” Johnson says. “But so magnetic at the same time. You’re drawn to it. There were times when I was up all night downloading images.” (Randy Risling)

He was charged on child porn possession charges in 2009 and sentenced to 49 days in jail along with two years’ probation and inclusion on the sex offender registry.

After release from prison on conditions, he says he found himself beginning again several months later.

“(I started) peeking here and peeking there and getting my foot wet.”

Soon he was downloading massive amounts of illicit child pornography.

“It is so pernicious, so vile,” he says. “But so magnetic at the same time. You’re drawn to it. There were times when I was up all night downloading images.”

That ended on May 30, 2012.

He was taking an afternoon nap when he heard a voice yelling, “the police are here.”

He knew why.

As he was removed from his home, he whispered to his girlfriend, “I’m sorry. It’s true. I’m a pedophile.”

She had no idea what he had been doing. “I was so good at hiding it,” he says.

He pleaded guilty and was eventually sentenced to serve out a total of two years and six months of jail time.

“Let’s not sugar-coat this,” one lawyer in his trial is quoted as saying. “What he had and what he liked to do is look at children when they were being victims ... He enjoyed watching children suffer.”

His only support through it all was his girlfriend, he says, who attended trial and visited him in prison. She passed away in April of last year.

Johnson says prison and professional treatment has gradually removed the urges he once had.

“There is hope for those caught in this despicable area of human activity,” he says. “It took 20 months (in jail) and huge losses to burn any inclination out of me … (I was) erasing and re-erasing the mental images to get to the point where they are no longer spontaneous.”

Still on probation, he is prevented by court order from owning a computer or accessing the Internet. His vintage cellphone has no Internet capability.

What remains, he says, is using his experience to stop other men.

“The stuff is turning really, really grisly,” he says. “My duty is to put a warning out there that if you’re going to do this, you’re going to get caught and you’re going to lose everything — reputation, job, finances, circle of acquaintances, everyone is going to abandon you. It’s going to blow up in your face for the rest of your life.”

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